wanted: one equilibrium, size medium

I should knock on your door with a warning already on my lips: I'm going to require a supersized dose of patience. I am just so DISTRACTED by examining the ins and outs of my imagination. I am so DISTRACTED by the cracked particleboard under my mattress and by the vase full of spring flowers on the counter. And let's not get started on the blister on the side of my heel that won't heal because I don't give it time.
I think I'm going through a phase in which I take things much too far. There are extremes all over me and it's kind of alarming--I had a failure of flexibility and my reaction was to curl into a ball and fling myself down a mountain à la the pebble toad.
And that's just me talking in euphemisms. Maybe the reality was even more ridiculous.
I'm not sure of the cure but I imagine it would involve constant reassurances, clean bills of health, and melted cheese.

driven

I am able to see the wisdom in

keeping calm
and going light on the brakes

and
salt-free pretzels and
deep soaks in hot water
after a long day of
crumbling leather
and
insincere fights.

I'm never going to go pro

I am always emptying the trash. That sounds like a metaphor but don't worry about it.

Just like this one: my lips are coated in beeswax and honey.

finish line

My teeth are wearing sweaters, my ass is wearing pants two sizes too big, and I am completely naked under the gaze of my own crossed eyes. I shoulda been so much braver.

5K

A run/walk race for autism made its way past my bedroom window this morning. Dozens and dozens of multicolored t-shirts and spandex and running shoes. When I woke for the second and third times this morning it was to the sound of cheering and bright flashes of legs in groups of four or six and I think this is why my dreams in the middle of these were frantic. The stream of people is still flowing even as I write this, although what's left at the end are walkers and those bent double or limping. And the ones in pink velour. It pleases me--this all just makes me glad to be part of this species. I don't always, but today I accept the label 'human' with pride.

WHAT SHE WAS WEARING

this is my suicide dress
she told him
I only wear it on days
when I'm afraid
I might kill myself
if I don't wear it

you've been wearing it
every day since we met
he said

and these are my arson gloves

so you don't set fire to something?
he asked

exactly

and this is my terrorism lipstick
my assault and battery eyeliner
my armed robbery boots

I'd like to undress you he said
but would that make me an accomplice?

and today she said I'm wearing
my infidelity underwear
so don't get any ideas

and she put on her nervous breakdown hat
and walked out the door


~ Denver Butson

wringing the rain from my hair

I don't know why I continually reject my own offer of clemency.

I could have rolled over and slept for another dream-drenched hour, but instead I muscled my way out from under the covers and was soon walking through a soaking gray morning with a red umbrella way too structurally weak to handle the biggest of the raindrops and the wildest of the gusts of wind.

I am frustrated, but I hope my frustration would have been worse if I had driven to work instead.

thrum

I was at a dress rehearsal tonight and twice I was asked, 'why are you so happy?!' I feel like the answer should be obvious: Performance! And timpani! And the the way it felt an hour earlier when my teeth burst through the skin of a deep red apple! And a renewed contract for my sister's teaching position! And a feeling of utter certainty that this all--I mean my life--is unfolding the way it's meant to! And the fact that I've been wearing this shirt inside-out all day and I just now noticed! Wasn't this all readable? I think it should have been etched in there between my eyes.

thematically speaking

my last few days have been full of
drool
sore shoulders
maple syrup
short sleeves
David Sedaris
regret
chocolate cake with peanut butter icing
devotion
mouthwash
idioms
new grass
chest hair
and
open windows

equinox

Daffodils are so implausible! I find myself almost affronted by their tenacity and something-from-nothingness each spring. Here they are again, erupting yellow suns from the brown of the winter-weary dirt. How dare you flood the ground with so much flattery.

Blessed be the blue skies and the mountains hanging on the verge of green--we have survived.

bullseye

Today the air felt light. Spring happens so well in this valley and it changes me. I had so much bold, unapologetic love pouring from my skin all day. This evening I thought I might focus those affections into a single beam like the point of a laser but then my finger shook so instead I loved it all, from the blue in the air to the glossy black fur of the dog at my knee.

It was scattershot but my aim was good.

marked

I wrote a note to me on the side of my wrist ('MUG,' if you're curious) and because I chose red ink I am wasting a good deal of time looking down in alarm, thinking I've sprouted a stigmata. It is certainly the most jarring aspect of my morning, which has otherwise been pale yellow and helpful.

hello mellow

I wonder if I will ever make sense
(and where's the incentive,
when I'm loved so fiercely despite my absurdity?)

VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

~Kenneth Koch

kid

I am a neglecter of shopping lists and unfolder of laundry.

breathe out

I am going to fall asleep presently with the sound of the first springish rain filling my ears. It's been a good day--I was well today, and I was early to work and wore purple and spoke honestly. Saw Avatar with my fam and my man and bit my lip whenever he flexed his arm. Ate Mexican food and listened to my dad fart. Spent an hour or so drying the puddles off my pant cuffs and warming the chill off of my arms against a benevolent chest before exploding in a ball of dramatic sighs and desperation and dragging my feet all the way home. I feel much better than my tousled hair and jutting lower lip would indicate, and so I should.

autonomy

Here's a scary thought: choice.
It is becoming more and more apparent to me lately that my reactions and my attitudes are totally malleable and can be shaped and edited to either kill or improve a situation. Not across the board, because there will always be my viscera. There are some circumstances and some people that will always exact a certain emotion from me without my permission and without forethought. There are some instances wherein I will always throw open my arms and some that'll freeze me solid. But holy frick, guys, there are so many times when I can CHOOSE to open up or shut down, even when my heart would claim otherwise. I have an overload switch! It is effective! This probably would have been useful knowledge to the 15 year old me. This also makes me feel like so much more of tool on the times I willfully choose to take the sulky way out. (Spoiler alert: GET USED TO THAT. IT WILL KEEP HAPPENING. I HAVE A FINITE AMOUNT OF REASONABLE.)

I think this is somehow related to the whole 'ahh, I make a difference!' panic of a few days ago, in that this is me realizing that 'ahh... I make a difference!'

Shut up.

squick

Today I am walking through the building hunched over like I'm forgetting how to walk, or maybe I'm just learning. Which may or may not be a result of the dish soapy coffee I brought with me in the thermos I forgot to rinse.

catalyst

I am uncomfortable with the idea that anything I am or anything I do or say can carry enough weight to shift the balance of someone else's life. I don't mean small things like the headache I gave you because I refused to follow instructions, or a sore muscle from where I pulled against it. I mean, for example, it still terrifies me to realize that I was the tipping point in my family's migration south last fall. If it were not for my choices and my voice, my parents would never have left the home I grew up in and ended up living just down the road. The responsibility of this will always press down around me. I can't say it was right, I can't say it was wrong. It was probably right. But the idea that it was me who started the pebble rolling down the hill will never allow me to settle into the change. My fear of unbalancing is (probably) ridiculous. It is (most likely) batshit stupid. But I cannot ever cheerfully accept the rightness of a life that's been edited after running through my filter. I am too inconstant, too unwise. It's me who should be shifting to you.

inheritance

My mom tells me that ever since her pregnancy with me she hasn't been able to stomach orange juice. I must have taken that from her, because I'm on my third glass in thirty minutes. There have been other things I've tried to take from her but have failed--her calm, her neat handwriting, her unsinkable faith. Though I suppose if it's a one of us or the other scenario, I end up on the best end of things either way.

the up, the down, and the sideways

I got a wonderful Christmas present in the mail today. You know how you never mind the three month delay when you get a package you haven't been waiting for? I feel blessed.

I have been playing my oboe for... I am counting... sixteen years. This is why it is UNacceptable that I cracked a reed on my tooth at a rehearsal Tuesday evening. From stern to aft. I have never been what you might call a professional in bearing or demeanor or preparedness. So I scrambled to find another and rubbed my eyes and sighed. That was not the best day.

Neither was yesterday, but I did solve that all with an evening with my family. On the ride home I said to my sister and my brother, 'I like you guys.' I wonder why I don't tell them so all the time.

Today. Well, I was handed a list of 217 things to do and I was handed a stack an inch thick of material that should never be my responsibility, but somehow is. There is only so much I can accomplish with seven hours. But someone stopped me in the hall and said to me, 'you have gotten so skinny! I barely recognize you--you must have lost 40 pounds!' I didn't correct her to say sixty. But I did blush and grin and thank her and when I walked away a minute later I felt better than I had all morning.

I have another rehearsal in an hour. I will try to keep all of my parts in tact this time, and I admit that I am looking forward to getting a second chance.

pangy

I am pressing down on a dull ache and wishing speedwalking were a cure-all. It was the fix to this morning's physical lethargy and a solution to leaving the house ten minutes late, but not, apparently, a cure for today's endless monotony or general feeling of pang. I am just feeling quite pang-y today. My next attempt to revitalize me will be miniature origami.

Tuesday morning

I am listening to DeVotchKa and pondering the nature of skunk suicide.